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Aaron Roxby has some distinct opinions on the grind. In this new editorial called "DING! Or why I killed several thousand innocent goblins and rats", we learn what they are.
You can read more here. Dana Massey |
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8/15/06 3:21:47 PM#2
MMORPGs are all about killing random stuff to get random stuff. I can't even count the number of quadraplegic, toothless, tongueless, blind, skinless, boneless, tail-less, earless, hairless, peltless, gutless wolves I've dispatched. (How exactly do these things hurt me, anyway?) They even came up with a term - camping - to describe a method of getting the most experience for time invested by "pulling" monsters to a group stationed in an area that was known to be relatively free of wandering monsters. I'm fairly certain that if you lived in medieval times and threw a dagger at a castle guard and ran back to your group, the guard would bring a lot more of his friends than just the guy standing there with him. Unfortunately, that's the MMORPG we live in.
D&D was about group comraderie and journeying to accomplish a mission. No one deliberately set out to kill wolves for experience. You never heard someone say "hang on - just need to kill a couple more wolves so I can level". The experience was awarded for successful mission completion, extraordinary "in character" actions, and sometimes random whims of the DM. You could get experience from successfully bypassing a fight, too, because the fight wasn't necessarily the objective. I've never gotten experience in an MMO for not fighting. One MMO problem with journeys is that someone, somewhere decided that time had to be the same for every character. In D&D, you told the DM "we head from town A to town B", the DM replied how long it would take, and you may or may not have to "play" the journey. If something interesting was to happen along the way, you did, but not the entire minute to minute journey. If you camped (because your character does have to sleep now and then) or there were random encounters, the DM had you deal with those. Otherwise, the DM said "you arrive at Town B", and that was it - no long runs through desolate newbie areas or uber-mob filled fens. |
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8/15/06 4:36:28 PM#3
I understand this editorial very well. I don't understand why there is so little play in MMORPGs. Seems it is more grind and loot than adventure. The new EQ Progression servers is a great example of where the developers made it very much about the numbers but tried to spin it in a way to get the ones who wanted to adventure. The adventurers are feeling pretty bad about the way it is turning out. Those servers have a score board for #1s and so the people who love numbers are racing which is advancing things too fast for the adventurers. I would love to see more dynamic content in MMORPGs that did not come down to numbers but to have a chance to participate in something that is limited to a one time event that is not a first one there but just being there. Something where a town is being attacked by a horde. A 1st level is going out and making some of the fringe mad and leading them back to an ambush by the high level characters. Make it something not about loot or experience or numbers. Make something where participation is what is important. I keep hoping for something where I helped influence something in the world and not just did some rinse and repeat content.
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Greyhawk4x4
 Advanced Member
Joined: 1/26/06
-Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Ben Franklin |
8/15/06 6:45:56 PM#4
Great piece!
I play my character as if I am in the world, I follow quest lines to the end while reading the lore and enjoying the landscapes. As a residual effect, I level. I also take the time to enjoy tradeskills and run a business. I have been playing EQ2 for a long time and I am level 53. Many of my guildies have past me up to max out at 70. I can only hope they enjoyed the journey as much as do. |
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8/16/06 2:17:54 AM#5
He was actually better at playing this game than I was, because he was actually experienced. - Aaron Roxby You werent the first to say it but damn its good to hear another person with a similar view. Horses for courses. Rock, pop, roots & rap. Single player, multiplayer, MMO-(RPG; RTS; FPS; G). Define definition. Your bound to get different answers. Just like you would with whats an MMOG mean? Explorers, Socialisers, Achievers & Killers? Questers, Griefers, Lamers, Carebears. |
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8/16/06 3:23:47 AM#6
It's called addiction. The only reason we play these shitty games.oh and for cyber.
The real reasons are for a sense of community (a graphical chatroom) and so through playing and grinding we can actually measure our achievements agaisnt someone elses, unlike single player games. Other than the thousands of players populating these games you barely have a game to play. If you took the massiveley multiplayer out of it you would have a game even william hung could play(noone will convince me he is not retarded) Everyone will obviously say DUH to that, but then they should scratch their heads and wonder why they are playing games with their friends which are utter crap. It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't. |
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8/16/06 12:35:33 PM#7
Insteresting article.
Issue I have with it is this (in his comparison to FPS'): an RPG, IMO, should not be based on someone's twitch factor. If I'm 80 years-old and still playing MMO's (God willing!!) should I get my lvl 127 Uber Battle Mage's @ss handed to me by a 12 year-old and his lvl 5 Newbish Warrion just because his twitch skills are better? I think not. I don't even think it should be a contest. No matter that this 12 year-old has 5 level 200 Elven Fairy Monsters and has tons more "experience" playing the game. The whole point is the "RP"... We're "role playing" these avatars. Not merging them with real life. And although I do agree, the "grind" is evil, it's a necessary evil. I think one approach would be to institue dynamic questing and longer quest lines with more story telling involved. But, that's just my opinion. |
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8/16/06 1:03:06 PM#8
"I
think one approach would be to institue dynamic questing and longer
quest lines with more story telling involved."
I completely agree. While I did use a First Person Shooter as an example, I didn't mean to convey that "Twitch" gameplay is the only way to go. Skill can mean more than just reflexes. I also believe that there is room for many types of online games. I don't think that we need to "get rid" of the old style, simply that we should have more alternatives. That way, 40 years from now, I can sit and grind in my old age, but grandson will be able to jump into his holodeck and actually kill an ogre. Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the reviews of MMORPG.com or its management. |
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8/16/06 10:27:34 PM#9
DING!
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8/16/06 10:32:32 PM#10
i also think the evil grind is necessary as well, hell some of my best times were at camps bs with friends with the occassional wipe because no one was paying attention or that we did something stupid. there has to be some long journey or tough battle or i wouldnt feel any accomplishment, epic quests in eq1 are a good example after a certain time afraid to make a mistake because of the long journey it has been. And when it all over you have such a feeling of accomplishment. its the journey not the destination that makes these games fun along with the friendships |
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8/17/06 6:31:37 AM#11
You need more bait. You dont need a level grind to feel a sense of accomplishment. Yea there should be a journey and a destination. But the destination shouldnt be Max level. It should be the furthest reaches of the planet or a X on a map you found, or infiltrating an enemy clan to feed information to a rival. Chosing your destination is what im after. The open fields, not a Motorway/Autobarn game design. When people talk about endgame thats when there's supposed to be choice. But most games dont even have it then. We arent all accountants or math wizz's. We dont want to live and breath numbers. Maybe thats not possible in a game. To do whatever you want. But then if thats true, why bother with an MMOG and a monthly fee? Ok some people like it. Fine. I dont, gimmie something different. Try expanding you customer base instead of going after the same old gamers and simply try and outdo the most popular game. |
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8/17/06 7:15:41 AM#12
The things is that many games that give you the freedom to set your own path don't make it easy to find that path or realise what paths are available.
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- |
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8/17/06 3:22:18 PM#13
Good editorial... as it lets me get in another plug for the idea that MMORPGs don't need character advancement. It's this notion that characters have to "level up" that leads developers to implement repeatable content -- i.e., The Grind. Suppose instead that you had a really deep character creation system, and that once you'd developed a character to your liking you could enter the game world and just start playing. Why would that be worse than what we have now, which is that you have to spend weeks levelling up just to get to the fun high-end content? If the journey is what matters, then not having to worry about climbing the ladder to the level cap lets you focus on the journey instead of the destination. Without levels, you simply play the game -- you travel, you explore, you interact with the game world and the people in it. Your character still has adventures; your charcter still develops (with a personal history, scars, gear, faction changes, etc.); and you the player still gain all the fun memories of adventures in a distinctive game world. Finally, I'd point out that this has already been tried in PnP RPGs, where it worked Just Fine. A great example of this was Traveller/MegaTraveller. There weren't any character levels to be focused on while you played the game; you just traveled the galaxy having adventures with your friends. There's no reason why this approach can't be equally successful as a MMORPG. So where are the publisher and developer who are ready to win big by funding this kind of game that eliminates the dreaded grind problem? --Flatfingers |
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8/18/06 12:32:27 PM#14
After gaming for so many years and seeing what people like and want from games I have to say majority of mmorpg gamers are extreme masochists who require a severe kick to the nuts in order to enjoy a game.
It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't. |
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8/19/06 12:12:42 AM#15
Or another aproach would be very little grind yet more character developement. Right now most games have only 1 to 3 different ways to build up you character(adventuring, crafting, diplomat, or AA's.). Instead having more like 7 or 8 paths of advancement that would make the characters very personal and individual feeling. Also allowing a blend of classes to allow a character to build the character to their play style or a conceptial character that the player could create would get around the horrid grind based games. Also improving the end game, from raiding/ pvp as the only way to keep a game interesting. Or expanding endlessly making old parts of the game obsolete and useless. Also with the mass expansions way of keeping a game going, the gear has to be better than the one before it making gear eventually far to powerfull.
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8/22/06 8:09:22 AM#16
I know exactly what you mean....
MMORPGs are pulling increasingly away from the RPG, and closer to the grind engine.... In most of them, ther is little (or none) sense of story, ther is no ultimate goal in the game (except having the higher number)... That is something that i've always tryed to find in MMOs, but to no avail... Some games still give us some excitement, and some fun, but most of them just grow tiresome, and you end up wasting your time just to keep your number on par with other ppl's numbers... By this time, the fun is over, and its just a blunt competition, and in no time, you'll start discarding the game...
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8/22/06 9:12:07 AM#17
I feel exactly the same. For example i played WoW with lots of my friends. While they endlessly quested, grinded, mauled etc. I spent my time fishing and becoming a mighty engineer....but i soon fell behind in levels. They started to leave the areas i was in. I found the game pressured me into leveling as fast as was humanly possible, but because i didn't spend as much time playing, and the time i did play i prefered to simply enjoy myself opposed to instance run after instance run after instance run i could never keep up with my friends. Eventually i fell out with WoW and turned to other MMO's. I tried CoH and CoV, i thought the lackey/sidekick system would help, but there just wasn't enough to do as fun as busting in hordes of evil-doers is, i like crafting in games. I feel it adds something different. Then i also noticed trying to taking a sidekick into a serious mission and the majority of people scream: "OMG NOOB!11! we're gonna wipe! i'm logging." Currently i play no MMO's though i have my eye on several that are just on the horizon. Hopefully they'll deliver a system i can enjoy.
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8/23/06 10:46:01 AM#18
For the most part this article consists of: words words words, we hate grinding, more words. But I'm glad he pointed out the fact that the standard "grind" in MMORPGSs comes from a paper and pencil game that most MMO gamers have never played. I think developers and players have come to accept this grind needlessly. Hopefully this sort of thinking can help burst the bubble when it comes to this idea that MMORPGs need to be a grindfest. Unfortunately, no one has developed an alternative yet. EvE doesn't require a grind, but the amount of time a character has been around still determines their "skill" level. As long as people will pay for a game with grinding (wheter that's quests or grinding on mobs) publishers will keep producing grindfests. If it takes you 3 months to reach level xxx, then that's 3 months they could keep the carrot in front of your nose. 
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